


Longing floats around you

by lbmisscharlie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Clothing Kink, Feminization, For the love of God, Genderplay, Gentleness, Intercrural Sex, Multi, Oral Sex, Sensation Play, Someone give Bucky a hug, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, Wartime, and tell him he's being good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:57:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9958169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie
Summary: In the midst of wartime, Bucky finds softness.





	

Peggy’s got her own tent, tucked up next to the kitchens and decorously far from the barracks tents. It’s far enough that it’s only prudent for Steve and Bucky to escort her back after their late briefing. It is a war zone, after all.

The tent flap has barely hit the ground behind them before Peggy’s turning around and grabbing Steve’s neck, pulling him down to her mouth. “Ye gods, I thought my mission would never end,” she says, against his mouth, and then, “I’ve missed you,” reaching behind Steve for Bucky. 

He comes closer, tucks himself to Steve’s side, kisses her mouth, then her jawline. Her lipstick has faded – it’s nearly one in the morning, and she only got in from her three-week mission five hours ago – but everything else about her is bright, sparkling, the gleam of her teeth and the soft want in her eyes. 

“We missed you, too,” Steve says, mouth against her skin and speaking for both of them. Truthfully, and fair; they have.

Steve’s kissing up on her neck, and Bucky’s got one hand on her hip and one on Steve’s, and it’s a revelation, every time, that he can have them like this, together, Peggy like no gal he’s been with before and Steve like he always wanted but thought he couldn’t have. 

“I hope you kept each other company,” she says, voice falling a little breathy as Steve mouths at the point of her shoulder and Bucky thumbs at her nipple through too many layers of fabric. 

“Yes ma’am,” Bucky says, though in truth that’s mostly meant a couple of snatched kisses when the fellas can’t see them, and keeping each other alive the rest of the time. 

“Good,” she says, squirming against Bucky’s hand. “Because I’ve been very lonely, and I want both of you touching me right now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve says, echoing Bucky with laughter and a little wonderment in his voice, and he starts to tug at the buttons on her jacket, hands brushing against Bucky’s. 

She wriggles out of it impatiently, unbuttons her blouse to her waist, then says, “Oh, goodness, that’s plenty,” and reaches down to wrench the hem of her skirt up to her hips. “Steve,” she says, “sit.” 

Steve pulls away, looks dubiously at the cot then the single chair, raises an eyebrow at Bucky. “The chair, I think,” Bucky says, though he’s skeptical of the structural integrity of either. Steve shrugs, sits. The hem of his uniform jacket spreads, framing the bulge starting to grow in his trousers. Peggy tsks, gestures at Steve’s lap.

“Oh,” he says, flushing up pretty above the snug collar of his shirt. Bucky’s very pleased that hasn’t changed. Lifting up his hips a little, Steve unbuttons his fly, pulls open his trousers. When he slips one hand into his shorts and brings out his cock, his foreskin is already rolling back from the head, which gleams a little, glossy and red. He cups his palm around the shaft, rolls his thumb over the head, reaching for the johnny Bucky’s holding out to him. 

Their fingertips brush. Steve’s eyes hold on Bucky’s mouth for a long moment; he licks them, a little convulsively, and watches the way Steve’s throat bobs. 

Peggy steps between them, leaning up to kiss Bucky while Steve rolls the johnny on. He tucks his hands inside her blouse, on the silk of her slip, to cup her waist. She smiles against his mouth – he’s always making her smile, and not always quite sure why – and rocks her thigh against him, teasingly, barely any pressure through the layers of fabric between them. 

Looking over her shoulder, Bucky sees Steve watching them, one hand on his cock and the other fisted tight in the fabric of his trousers, over one thigh. “I think he’s ready for you,” Bucky murmurs.

Peggy turns, smiling still – and that they can smile, any of them, in the middle of all of this, that’s another revelation – and says, “Yes, I rather think so.” Wriggling out of her panties, Peggy straddles Steve’s lap, back to his chest, and reaches between her legs to guide him into her. As she settles, delicate little mouth open, wet, and eyes fluttered closed, she holds her skirt and slip up at her hips with her other hand, so that Bucky can see the joining of them, wet dark hair where Steve’s opening her up, and her soft, creamy thighs in their stockings. He rubs at his cock through his trousers, the tight press of his fly almost too much.

Her eyes flicker open, and find Bucky’s quickly. “James, come here and give me that pretty mouth,” she says, and so he steps forward, leans down to kiss her, steadying himself with one hand on Steve’s shoulder. Steve watches them over Peggy’s shoulder, licks his lips when Bucky nips at Peggy’s lower lip. 

“That’s lovely, darling, but not quite what I meant,” she says when she pulls away. Her smile is soft and fond; her lips are wet from his mouth. 

“Oh,” he says, at the meaning in her words, at her hand on his shoulder, and drops to his knees. Steve spreads his legs a little wider, and Peggy gasps as her thighs stretch more, toes off the ground. Bucky nestles between their cupped legs, puts his hands on Peggy’s inner thighs, just at the band of her stockings, so that his thumbs brush the tops of Steve’s legs, too. 

The stockings are silk. They’ve been darned a good few times, but they’re soft under his calloused palms and warm from her skin. Her flesh is, too, soft and yielding until he presses and feels the tense strength of her muscles. She rolls her hips, tiny little rocking movements, and he can feel each pull.

In the closeness between her legs, their shared smell is salty and sour, none of the three of them getting much more than quick cold showers lately, and he wants quite desperately to taste it coating his tongue, the sticky wetness of Peggy and Steve both. When he leans in and licks at them, right where they come together, Peggy jerks against his mouth and gasps, and Steve says, “Oh, Bucky,” in a way Bucky’s still getting used to. Still treasuring, holding tight to his chest.

He does it again, licks at them both, then moves a little higher to where Peggy’s hard and swollen for him, her little clit hot under his tongue. He drags his tongue, his lips, over it, his whole mouth full up of her, his nose nestled in her hair. Under his hands, her thighs tremble. Under his hands, her stockings are silky and soft. 

Peggy’s moving faster now, a little erratically, and Steve’s hands move down her thighs to brush against Bucky’s, holding her in place, holding her open. She’s letting out soft little sounds – quiet-like; they might be far from the barracks but it’s still a goddamn Army camp in the middle of a warzone – and Bucky’s mouth drags across Steve’s cock when he tries to follow her movements, so that Steve gives one raw, broken groan and squeezes hard to Bucky’s fingers, to Peggy’s thigh. 

He can feel her starting to go, shoving against his mouth more frantically, when something flutters down around his face, dimming the weak light even more. It takes him one long moment to realize it’s Peggy’s slip, escaped from her grip, that brushes smooth and silky against his cheeks. It’s warm from her skin and soft – so goddamn soft – and he groans, into Peggy’s cunt, and digs his fingertips against the band of her stockings, his middle finger caught up under the metal clip of her garter strap. 

“Oh,” Peggy cries out, and she rolls her hips up hard, into his mouth, at the same moment she reaches down to cup his cheek through the slip, all the soft silk pressed up against him, caught on the stubble on his jaw. 

He groans, licks her harder; she shoves her cunt jerkily against his mouth; Steve’s hips jolt up once, then again; and everything is softened, hazy, through the gentle press of silk on his cheek, his eye, brushing against the corner of his mouth. 

He keeps licking them both even as Peggy sags over him, hands going to his shoulders to keep herself upright, until she touches his cheek, though the slip, and pulls forward enough to lift off of Steve’s cock. 

He’s – he wants to – he doesn’t want to stand, wants to stay between the shelter of their spread legs, of the gentle light filtered through silk, forever. So he chases forward, frees up one hand to pull the johnny off of Steve, then mouths at his softening cock to lick it clean. Steve lets him, and lets him, even though Bucky can hear the soft, almost pained gasps Steve’s breathing above him; he lets him. 

“James, darling,” Peggy says finally, and lifts the silk up off him. He blinks up at her, at the light, at Steve’s face hooked over her shoulder. Soft, fond. “Can we take care of you?” she says, letting him decide. He doesn’t always stay hard through all of it, or comes hastily once, his body not quite under his control again yet. Sometimes, too, he doesn’t always want to be touched, at all, anywhere, but less and less often as the days pass. 

But when he shifts his mind away from the heavy, heady taste of Steve layered over Peggy, away from the ghost of the skimming touch of silk against his cheek, he’s hard, interested, cock throbbing a little against the press of his fly buttons where his trousers are strained with the spread of his thighs. 

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah,” and Peggy smiles, picks up the hem of her slip and wipes his mouth, pushing silk against his wet lips. His eyes widen; she pushes her silk-swathed thumb into his mouth, probes at his tongue. 

“You’re so good,” she says, and Bucky wants to whimper, thinks he does. Steve’s hands convulse over his. Bucky sucks at Peggy’s thumb, tastes the silk, wants her to tell him that again. Her mouth drops open in a little tremble; over her shoulder, Steve stares at Bucky’s mouth. 

Peggy turns her head, kisses Steve on the corner of his mouth. “Should we make him feel good?” she asks, and Steve says, “Yeah – _yeah_ –” like that’s all he’s ever wanted. 

She draws her hand away. The silk is messed, dark where his spit has soaked it, but she just drops the hem and brings her knees up over Steve’s, steps down in between Steve’s thighs and Bucky’s kneeling legs. Cups his chin, lifts him up. 

It’s Steve who undresses him, unbuckles and unbuttons and levers wool from his shoulders. Steve’s in his olive drab, the tie only loosened and the jacket still buttoned tight, flies left undone but his cock tucked away, but Bucky’s in his field gear, navy and black and no tie. Steve cups his hands around Bucky’s neck, warm and gentle, and thumbs at the hollow between his collarbones, before unbuttoning his shirt, backs of his fingers brushing against Bucky’s skin.

It’s desperately familiar, this casual, gentle touch, like he’s stood there a million times before, in a tent on the Western front while Steve undoes every button on him. He hasn’t – they haven’t – they’ve caught each other up in the few quiet moments they can spare, only a dozen or so times since Steve picked Bucky up off that table and kissed him hard on the mouth as if he’d been holding the urge in for years. A couple times with Peggy, now, when she’s in for a briefing or to liaise on a mission, because she can see right through them both, right through the fraction of air they keep between themselves in public, charged and heavy and taut. Bucky’s lost track of how long he’s wanted it, how long he’s felt every inch of space between him and Steve like it’s his umbilical, tying them together. 

Steve’s knuckles brush against his sternum as he tugs Bucky’s shirt out of his waistband. Bucky leans up – up, now, it’s the damnedest thing, that he’ll never know what it would have been like to lean down and kiss Steve, take his fragile shoulders in his two hands and hold him still and kiss him – and mouths at the corner of Steve’s lips. 

Steve turns, kisses him full on the mouth, deep and searching and hungry; Bucky feels insubstantial against the weight of his desire. Then Steve makes a soft, broken-off little noise and rests his forehead against Bucky’s and says, “ _God,_ Bucky,” like he’s undone, and Bucky is tethered and weighty again. 

He takes off his own trousers, and shorts, and gets tangled on his boots, has to sit down and work the mess out with Steve’s patient, bit-lip help. Peggy laughs behind one hand held over her mouth, and he growls at her a little, just a rumble in his throat; she lifts her eyebrows and drops her hands, swipes her tongue across her no-longer-laughing mouth. 

When Bucky’s naked, Steve lifts his feet up onto the cot, gestures at him to lie down. Underneath his body, the regulation blanket itches at his skin, familiar if not necessarily comforting. From the cot, Bucky looks up at them both, hands at his side and bare body tense, and something of the edging terror he begins to feel in the curl of his fists, the tightness of his jaw, must show, because Steve drops to his knees at the side of the cot and Peggy climbs right in next to him, body half-draped over his right side. 

She’s taken off her skirt, but still wears her slip, straps tugged down off her arms and brassiere disregarded so that everything against him is soft, enveloping: the lushness of her breasts spilling over his bicep, the smooth silk of her slip coating one side of his body from belly to thigh. He rubs the back of his knuckles against her mons through the silk, and she laughs, kisses his jaw.

“Steve,” Bucky says, even as he’s turning to kiss Peggy’s cheek, her temple, a mouthful of her hair, “Steve, please.” 

Steve strokes up Bucky’s thighs, spreads his legs a little, presses his thumbs into the sweaty creases of his hips. “Yeah, Buck?” he says, and Bucky wriggles under his hands.

“Touch me, you punk,” he says, and can feel both of them laughing, bodies trembling against him, as Steve does, leans over Peggy and grasps Bucky’s cock loosely in one hand and mouths at the head. 

“Oh –” Bucky jerks his hips up, and Steve pulls his mouth away, and Bucky says, “Come _on_ ,” and Steve laughs.

“Just need a little more room here, buddy,” he says, and Bucky doesn’t quite know what he means until he’s helping Peggy lift her leg and drape it over his abdomen, so that her cunt presses slickly against his hipbone. The fluttering hem of her slip settles over his cock and he jerks, helplessly, against its flimsy touch. “Oh,” Steve says, and when he grasps Bucky’s cock again he has the silk gathered up in his palm, so that his touch is plush and soft.

He mouths at the head through the fabric – wet, clinging – and it’s too much, it’s too good, Bucky wants to be cloaked in it, in slick wet silk. He fists one hand in the fabric at Peggy’s hip, pulls her closer, feels her soaking cunt rock against him, her breath skating over the pulse point on his neck. She drapes across him, one sweat-sticky hand rubbing his nipple, the abundance of her breasts soft against his arm, while Steve sucks him through her slip. 

It’s too much, the clinging heat everywhere, the buzzing of his veins; he throws one hand over his eyes, pressing hard so all he sees is darkness and white sparks, and jerks his hips into Steve’s mouth, barely managing a bitten-off warning before he’s coming. 

He breathes in, breathes out, pulls his hand away from his eyes. Steve has pulled back and looks up at him, mouth red and wet and open, some semen on his chin and more spilled in the cupped fabric still held in his palm. With his other hand, he pets at the crease of Bucky’s thigh and hip, sending skittering little shocks up Bucky’s nerves. 

Rolling his head to the side, Bucky finds Peggy’s mouth, open and panting softly as one hand moves between her thighs, the backs of her knuckles brushing against Bucky’s hip. She huffs into his mouth in tiny, gasping bursts as her fingers move frantically. 

Bucky can just see Steve shift a little, moving Peggy’s slip so he can see her cunt, one hand on Bucky’s inner thigh and one on hers. She spreads her legs a little more, knee coming to rest more heavily on Bucky’s side, and trembles against him, taking his lower lip into her mouth as she comes, hips jerking and teeth biting down on the fleshiness of his lip. 

Steve’s the first one to get up, crossing the room to grab a towel from the little clothing rack in the corner and wiping his hand. He cleans up Bucky and Peggy, gentle on Bucky’s too-sensitive cock, dabbing at the little mess on Peggy’s slip, wiping her inner thighs. She sighs and snuggles into Bucky. 

“I’ll have to wash my slip before I sleep now, you know,” she says, sleepily against his cheek. He stills, a little flush of shame making its way up his belly before she kisses his jawline and adds, “It’s easier than blood, at least; don’t you fuss.”

Steve’s still looking down at them; when Bucky blinks his eyes open, he’s hit, overwhelmingly, by the softness of his eyes. Bucky wants to shove over, to have Steve crawl in behind him, but he’s honestly not certain if the movement will send them both toppling to the floor. 

“I’ll wash it,” Steve says. “You two could use some sleep.” Steve doesn’t need as much, lately; Bucky still wants to protest. As Peggy leans up to tug the slip over her head and wriggle the blanket out from underneath them, Steve strokes one hand down Bucky’s thigh, as though gentling him. “Go on, Buck. We’ll go back to our tent in an hour or so and I’ll get some sleep then.” 

Peggy drifts off tucked up against Bucky’s side, but Bucky watches Steve bend over her little washbasin, delicate fabric in his big hands. He swishes it around and scrubs gently at the spot Bucky’s semen left, and it could be 1938 in their tiny place in Brooklyn, Steve washing up smalls and socks to hang above the radiator. 

Steve gently squeezes the garment out, first on its own then with the towel, and drapes it over the rack. The wet silk is translucent, the pearly pinkish tone of the inside of a shell, of the unfurled lips of Peggy’s cunt, of the tips of Steve’s ears in the sun. Bucky is caught, again, by the desire to drape it over himself, to feel it sticking wetly to his skin. 

He burrows down a little tighter, brings one arm up over Peggy’s side, falls asleep to the sound of Steve slowly turning the pages of a plot boiler left on Peggy’s table. It could be 1938, except they never had this; it took war to bring them to this softness. 

++

Peggy meets them at the London headquarters even though it’s going on ten at night when their flight across the Channel lands. She dismisses all of them except Steve and Bucky, and the fellas go off to find a pint. Bucky wants to touch her, blood hot and keyed up from a near-sightless and silent flight from France, his only point of reference Steve’s thigh pressed hard against his, but Peggy really does need them for logistics first. 

He does pay attention – of course he does – and the initial intelligence isn’t difficult to lay out. They start to piece together routes of approach and angles of sight on the map that indicates the next Hydra factory they’ll try to hit, but there’s only so much they can do before Howard gets in tomorrow and gives them the rundown on the new gear. 

“Can I interest you boys in a drink?” Peggy says, finally; they hardly need the euphemism, with no other souls nearby at the SSR offices, but there’s pleasure in it, in the coy, flirting way Peggy lifts the corner of her mouth as she says it, in the way she lets Steve hold out her coat and help her into it, in the way she takes them each by the arm so they can walk three abreast on the empty sidewalks. 

The city is cast in deep, dark shadows this time of night, blackout orders in effect, but Peggy leads them surely and easily through the tangled streets toward the little flat she keeps for the days she’s in London. They’re fewer and fewer lately; she’s been going out on her own missions, things she doesn’t talk about with them. 

Three houses down from her building there’s a great gap like a lost tooth, jagged brick all that’s left of the foundation. Peggy walks by it, doesn’t look at it. 

Her flat is petite, a small range and sink, a separate water closet with a tiny door, a bed not much bigger than her army cot tucked behind a half-drawn curtain. Three chairs and a table; a kettle; three bottles of black-market whiskey tucked away under the sink. A window with blackout curtains already drawn. Her knickers drying on a rack by the radiator.

She closes the door behind them, leans up on her toes to kiss Steve and grapples past him to grab Bucky’s hand. She’s like this when they’re together: equitable, avid for the both of them. Bucky likes it even though it makes him feel a little guilty for the way Steve’s touch, Steve’s eyes on him lodges something acute and fierce deep in his gut that’s unmatched by the happy fondness he feels for her. But then, she too loves Steve more; how could anyone not? 

Grasping her hand, Bucky brings her knuckles to his mouth, kisses over each of them gallantly, and she grins at him over Steve’s shoulder. 

“I had a thought,” she says, and sounds almost a little nervous, so ill-suited to her mettle that Bucky frowns. 

Steve, too, steps back a little, brushing into Bucky, and says, “Anything, Pegs, anything you want.” 

“It’s not for me,” she says, “not exactly,” and she’s looking at Bucky, and Steve turns and looks at him too. Bucky blinks, holds his hands out, palms up.

“Not exactly protesting, here,” he says, because Peggy has generally had damned good ideas, ever since the first time she followed Steve back to their tent from a briefing and kissed him, hard and filthy, in front of Bucky. 

“Okay,” she says, “it’s just –” She walks around Steve to get to the table, lifts up a little box, hands it to Bucky. It’s flat, the kind of thing someone would use to wrap up a present, and plain, clearly reused, crumpled corners and yellowed streaks of cello tape.

He slides the lid off.

“Oh.” Setting the box down on the table, Bucky touches the fabric inside, with just the pads of his fingertips. On top, a gleaming pair of stockings, a shade darker than his skin; they shift ethereally under his touch. Underneath, a tidy fold of silk and lace, pale rosy pink. Something shifts deep in his gut.

He looks at Peggy; his cheeks burn. 

“You don’t have to,” she says, “and if you do, it doesn’t have to mean –” She holds out her hands, supplication.

He lifts one of the stockings. It unfurls like a ribbon, sheer and light, and a coiled tension inside him unspools, too. “I don’t –” He bites off the rest of his words. The band of the stocking slides liquid between his fumbling fingertips. 

Bucky dares a glance at Steve. His mouth is open, shocked, red, his eyes trained on Bucky’s hand fingering the silk stocking. One hand clenches at his side. “I haven’t ever,” Bucky says, and Steve drags his eyes to Bucky’s. He feels pinned down.

“Would you –” Steve says, an unfinished question. “I mean, would you want to?” There’s a flush high in Steve’s cheeks and he’s – god – he’s interested, pink and wet-mouthed and barely holding himself still at the thought of Bucky all – all dolled up, stockings up his thighs and silk snug on his chest. 

And Bucky is, well. Underneath his uniform, his skin feels tight, electrified. The stocking flutters; his hand is quivering. Damned foolish, that: he can shoot a man from two hundred yards, but give him a scrap of silky hosiery and he goes to pieces. He takes a breath. “Maybe,” he says, “maybe, yeah, okay.” 

Peggy grins, broad and red-lacquered, and his traitorous mind gives him one quick glimpse of Peggy painting her crimson onto his own mouth, the drag of the firm tip of the lipstick pulling against his lower lip, and he feels blood suffuse his cheeks. Yeah, maybe.

Steve moves first. He unbuttons his jacket, folds it over one of the chairs, tugs his tie loose. Every move is slow, deliberate, sure in a way his body could never quite manage, before. He looks at Bucky, who clutches the stockings in one hand, still. Not like he doesn’t know how it works, putting on stockings, but Bucky feels something he might call bashful, standing there in the middle of Peggy’s little flat with his olive drab buttoned up tight, like he’s got no idea what to do next. 

“You boys want to clean yourselves up?” Peggy tilts her head toward the water closet. “I’ll pour us some drinks.” 

Bucky exhales, puts the stocking back in the box, on top of the silky thing he hasn’t really touched yet, and follows Steve’s example, undressing down to his undershirt, trousers, and bare feet. 

They barely fit together in the little room, which holds a toilet, sink, and enamel cabinet with a yellowed mirror. Bucky set the box down on the closed toilet lid. The room smells a little stale, left too long without an airing out, with just the faintest undercurrent of faded talcum powder. They do both smell, a little, and Bucky figures Peggy doesn’t really mind but is giving them – Bucky – a chance to settle into things, to do things the right way around. He appreciates it – can’t quite think of his own stale, sweaty skin sticking to the silk. 

The taps take a moment to heat, and as the water splutters into the little sink, Steve takes Bucky’s chin in one hand and kisses him. “You wanna, right?” he says, right up against Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky nods. 

“I think –” he says. “I think, yeah.” Steve grins, teeth against Bucky’s lips, and steps a little closer, knocking the backs of Bucky’s calves against the toilet. He’s a little hard already, cock bumping against Bucky’s hip, and Bucky is, too, thinking about all that softness up against his skin. 

“The water, Steve,” he says, and Steve laughs, takes a half-step back. The water’s warmish, a far sight better than how they usually make do, and Steve wipes himself down quickly, unabashedly, with a washcloth. Under his arms, back of his neck, one hand slipped into his shorts to get some of the funk away from his groin. He rinses the washcloth, wrings it out, and starts on Bucky, stilling his protest with one pointed look. 

Bucky half-thinks about snatching the cloth from him, anyway, giving him a little snap with it, for treating him like a – well, he doesn’t know, because Steve’s gentle with animals, kids, and Bucky figures maybe gals, though Peggy only lets him sometimes, but the way he scrapes his hand down Bucky’s jawline, his neck, the hollow between his collarbones, it’s not at all like he’s a kid. There’s want in it, in the way Steve’s eyes follow the flush the washcloth leaves behind. 

Tugging at the hem of his undershirt, Steve gets it up over Bucky’s head, then cleans him across the chest and back, lingering at his nipples with a grin that makes Bucky sigh and screw his eyes up closed. With one damp hand, he flicks open the buttons of Bucky’s trousers, working them down off his hips with his shorts. His hand, as he cleans Bucky’s groin, thighs, the curve of his ass, is gentle, but when he catches Bucky’s eye he gives him that same shit-eating, trouble-making grin that Bucky’s known for two decades, and it’s so desperately familiar that it lodges a little ache in Bucky’s throat. 

He wants to sob, wants to clutch Steve by his no-longer-fragile shoulders, wants their world to be something other than cordite and steel and trenches, something other than gaping holes where buildings used to be, something other than a mind that betrays Bucky when he sleeps. 

Steve tosses the washcloth into the sink, still looking at Bucky, and his grin slides into something sweeter. He thumbs across Bucky’s cheekbone, his mouth, lets his wet thumbprint linger in the dip of Bucky’s chin. 

“You want me to help?” Bucky’s mouth trembles open with the gentle press of Steve’s thumb. He thinks, again, of letting his mouth drop open and slack for Peggy’s lipstick and licks his bottom lip, catching the tip of Steve’s thumb. Steve slides it up, inside, against the soft, tender inside of his lip then behind his teeth, hard against the supple, wet underside of Bucky’s tongue. 

Bucky’s eyes flutter closed. He shakes his head, tongue swollen and heavy against the probing touch of Steve’s thumb. 

“Okay,” Steve says, and slips his hand away from Bucky’s mouth. Bucky sucks in a deep breath, opens his eyes. 

“Why don’t you help Peggy get ready?” 

Steve nods, kisses him on the corner of his mouth. “Okay. Take your time.” In his hand, the doorknob nearly disappears. “Not too long,” he says, grinning, before he steps out. 

Alone in the bathroom, Bucky kicks his trousers to one side. He should hang them – gotta look sharp for briefing tomorrow – but all he can think about is the little box sitting on the toilet lid. 

The stockings are still there, a little rumpled now. Bucky looks down at his feet. It’s wartime, even Peggy has forgone keeping nail lacquer on, but he has to admit the three half-black and one half-missing toenails do not make for the most alluring sight. But then, Steve and Peggy have been screwing him quite happily, and a couple are Steve’s goddamn fault anyway. 

He wipes the bottom of one foot against his calf, nervously. He wants to be clean, wants this to be – unblemished. Just silk, against his skin. 

Picking up the box, he sits down on the toilet lid. Wipes his feet again. Pulls out one of the stockings. He’s seen gals do this dozens of times; it never looks too hard. Thumbs on the inside of the band, fingers on the outside, then he’s scrunching it up, wincing a bit at the way the gossamer silk catches on the callouses of his fingertips. There’s nothing for it; he’ll just have to be as gentle as he can.

As he bunches it up, he notices a few darns, so precise and tiny that he has to squint to make them out. It’s not surprising; Peggy’s got connections in more places than Bucky can imagine, but brand-new silk stockings are next to impossible these days, never mind in a size that might fit him. He doesn’t mind, really. All that care that some gal put into them, tiny darning needle and close attention, makes them seem a little more precious. 

With a deep exhale, he points his toes and dips them into the bunched end of the stocking, smooths it up over his foot. Guiding the stocking upwards, he lets it unfurl gently from his hands, not tugging too hard. It slips between his thumbs and the bent knuckles of his index fingers a little unevenly, the tension harder to maintain than he expected. He’s certain the seams won’t line up once they’re both on. 

The band reaches his mid-thigh, snugly, and above it his bare expanse of thigh looks more delicate somehow. The silk presses the hair on his legs down against his skin in dark, wispy lines. It doesn’t matter; his mind is occupied with the delicate shift of the fabric as he uncrosses his leg, the way it creases behind his knee and presses against the inside of his thigh. 

He picks up the second stocking and repeats his earlier movements, then stands on his toes and looks over his shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of the seams in the mirror. It’s too small: all he sees is the stretch of his shoulders, the curve of his waist looking narrow as he twists, the rise of his ass. His cock is hard; he doesn’t touch it. 

The little pile of rosy-pink silk in the box unfurls to be a slip, similar to the one Peggy had worn and petted him with and let him come into. Little angled seams forming cups for breasts he doesn’t have, a knee-length skirt flaring out at the hem, slim, delicate straps, and a scrap of lace across the top. When he holds it up, the weak bathroom light gives it a translucent glow. 

He’s never worn anything silk before, except the lining of his one good suit, crimson red against charcoal. Even that didn’t touch his skin, except when he was dressing, slipping the vest on and buttoning it up, sliding his hands through the sleeves of the jacket. He hadn’t been able to wear it after Sarah Rogers’s funeral without thinking of standing in the church without Steve, the urgent impatient ache to find him, where ever he’d holed himself up to cry. He’d kept wearing it, right up until he went away to Basic and came back with arms too big for its sleeves, but melancholy had lingered in its stitches.

When he slips this on over his head, letting it fall and settle on his shoulders, pulling gently to bring the bodice into place, it’s cool to his touch, like his suit had always been, sending up a little chill across his arms. Besides that, it’s nothing alike. He looks down at his chest, where the silk has settled a little loosely; there’s something in the way it falls, nonetheless, that clings to the faint rise of his chest, revealing just the shadows of his hardened nipples. This time, when he inhales, it’s a shocked suck through his teeth. 

The silk falls smoothly across the flat of his belly, skittering a little with his shallow breaths, and catches around his cock in soft folds. When he shifts one hip, experimentally, it slides across the swollen head like the tenderest touch. He exhales, shakily. 

Beyond the door, Peggy and Steve are quiet, letting him take his time. He smooths the silk on his hips, his thighs, wipes the back of one hand across his mouth. Under his hand, the doorknob turns with a click.

In the next room, Steve and Peggy are naked, sitting on her bed, kissing lazily. Peggy has her calves drawn up under her, one hand on Steve’s shoulder and one on his jaw, and Steve leans into her, sitting with his feet planted on the ground and his thighs spread a little. He pulls away at the click of the door, turns to look at Bucky. His mouth is wet.

In the doorway, Bucky holds out his hands. Presents himself. The hem of the slips floats over his thighs. Steve inhales, a shocked, gasping little, “ _Oh._ ”

“Yeah?” Bucky says. Spread at his sides, his hands tremble.

“ _Yes,_ ” Steve says, “yes, god, come here.” Peggy sits back on her heels beside Steve, self-satisfied little grin in place, and Bucky resists the desire to roll his eyes at her as he walks towards them.

The stockings shift as he walks, without garters to keep them up. They’ll probably be at his ankles before the night is up. That’s okay; the uncertain shift of the silk against his thighs is good, too, in its own way. 

He stops in front of Steve’s spread knees, hands still at his sides. Bucky’s cock is still hard; he feels weighty, centered in his body, in a way that sometimes escapes him these days. He reaches one hand out, touches Steve’s cheekbone, his jaw. Steve leans into his touch without taking his eyes away from Bucky, licks his mouth and lets his gaze drag heavily down his body. 

“Can I touch you?” he says, keeping his hands on his knees. They usually ask with their eyes, their hands, bare suggestions; Steve’s care makes Bucky feel a little shaky, like he’s something to be cared for.

“No, punk, I got all dolled up just so’s you could look at me all night, what do you think?” Bucky says, instead of just _yes, god,_ and in reward he gets Steve’s pleased, lazy grin, gets Steve to lean back a little, hands sliding up his thighs, gets Steve with his head tilted back and his stubborn goddamn chin jutting out. 

“Ah, I could just look at ya for a while longer, then, dollface, if that’s how it is.” A shocked little tremor finds its way right to Bucky’s cock, because that’s not how Steve talks to dames, not at all; that’s how _Bucky_ talks to them, dollface and darlin’ and baby, and his mind goes to the occasional nights he got a gal back to their apartment knowing full well Steve would get home partway through, would walk in their front door and hear Bucky and some dame heavy at it through the thin walls of the bedroom, would blush and try not to listen and avert his eyes when they finally emerged. 

“Could look at you forever, Buck,” he says, more earnest. “You’re so fucking pretty.” Bucky licks his lips, shifts a little, feels silk rub between his thighs. “Those tits alone,” he adds, dragging his eyes over them. Peggy gives a breathless, pleased little laugh. 

“Geez, the mouth on ya,” Bucky says, a little weakly. “Where’d you learn that filth?”

“Fella I room with,” Steve say, lazily. “Used to bring home gals, do all sorts of things to them.” He leans forward, hands gripped on his knees and neck craned to look up at Bucky. Between his legs, his cock bobs heavily. “I’d sit in the hallway and listen to them, touch myself.” 

“Fuck, Steve.” Bucky staggers forward a little with the weight of that image, Steve like he was, narrow shoulders up against the wall outside the bedroom, cock pulled out of his pants. Tugging on his cock, listening to Bucky’s voice. 

Steve puts his hands up, reflex, and settles them on Bucky’s hipbones, pulling the silk taut against his cock with his grip. “I used to think all sorts of things, listening to you,” he says, tops of his cheeks flushing up pretty. 

“Listening to me _and_ the girls,” Bucky says, gaze sliding over to Peggy. She’s just watching, rare enough for her, but her bottom lip is chewed swollen and she’s pressing her thighs together tight. “Did you think about them, too?”

Steve goes crimson; Peggy pets his neck, his jaw. “I thought about licking them off ya,” he says, almost mumbling. “Or – licking you while they – you know –”

“While he was in them?” Peggy murmurs, close to Steve’s ear, looking at Bucky. There’s a wicked tilt to her mouth; Bucky knows she likes to hear about how much they want each other, how much they always have. Steve drops his chin, swallows. 

“Yeah,” he says, blushing like he hadn’t done that very thing to Bucky and Peggy, at least half-a-dozen times.

“Is that what you want tonight?” Peggy says to Bucky, and he thinks: Peggy straddling him, Steve between his legs, both of them hot and wet. He does, but – 

“I don’t –” he starts, which isn’t quite right, because he does, but tonight – 

“Or maybe you want to be our girl tonight,” Peggy says, reaching to stroke down his hip, hand dragging just a bit over the silk. “Let us take care of you.” Bucky sneaks a look at her, because Peggy Carter doesn’t _let_ anyone take care of her, and no matter how many times as he’s said such a thing to a girl in his bed, he knows well enough that that’s not necessarily what it means to be someone’s girl. 

Peggy lifts one eyebrow, says, “Darling,” in a tone like he’s being very silly, and he drops his chin. 

“Yeah,” he says, “I want that.” 

“In that case,” Peggy says, “you’d best sit down.” She pats Steve’s thigh; he brings his legs together and looks up at Bucky, mouth open and wet. His hands slide down Bucky’s thighs, fall away. 

Bucky smooths down the slip, thinking about the way a gal might do it, nervous-like and a little eager, and he lowers himself to Steve’s lap, sideways, knees facing Peggy. She’s grinning like it’s Christmas, and a flush of pleasure burns in his chest. Steve brings one arm around Bucky’s back, holding him close, and it’s absurd, the shiver of want that sends down Bucky’s spine, playing at being small and delicate in Steve’s now-huge hands. 

“You look real pretty, darling,” Steve says, petting up and down Bucky’s back. His _darlin’_ is pure Brooklyn, not like Peggy’s _dar_ ling, and he’s borrowing from Bucky again, that cajoling tone. “You gonna let me touch you tonight? Play with you right through that pretty little slip of yours?”

Bucky exhales, nods. Steve’s fingertips, on his back, are soft, shivery touches through the silk, and he wants to feel that all over. Peggy leans in closer; her knee touches Bucky’s. She ghosts her fingertips over his jaw, his lips, down his neck, right to the scalloped border of the lace. “ _Such_ pretty tits,” she says, running her finger just along the edge of the lace. She sneaks a grin at Steve when he gives an amused little laugh. 

“Filthy, the pair of you,” Bucky says, feeling shaky. Peggy slides her hand down, slips the pads of her fingertips over his nipple. Steve’s big palm is on Bucky’s knee, just the pinky creeping over the edge of the hem to touch him through his stockings. 

Their touches are gentle, caressing, bare little whispers that send the silk gliding over his skin, and he wants to press into their hands, have them both pet him and touch him and open him up. 

“Can I –” Peggy says, then stops. Bucky flutters his eyes open, focuses on her. She’s blushing, a little, and he says, “Yes, anything,” because anything that will bring that flush up her cheeks must be a good idea. Peggy laughs, then says, more emphatically, “Can I give you a bit of lipstick? This mouth –” She traces her thumb over his lower lip, and he doesn’t wait for her to finish her thought before he’s nodding.

“Yes,” he says, “Yes.” 

Peggy’s lipstick is on her bedside table, which tells Bucky she’d thought about it already, and he wonders how many times she’s caught him watching her touch herself up after they’ve finished, watching the drag of the lipstick and the purse of her mouth and the little pop she makes after blotting. It’s crimson, which she only wears when they’re dancing; when she’s in uniform it’s a more sedate plum tone. 

Steadying his chin, Peggy mimes for him to open his mouth; he does, making it soft and just barely open the way she shows him. When she touches the tip of the lipstick to his mouth, it’s smooth, firm, and it does drag a bit, just as he’d thought, when she smooths it over his bottom lip. She paints it over the top lip, too, then purses her own mouth together to show him what to do. It feels a little waxy, unfamiliar, when he presses his lips together. He opens his mouth again, and she draws the tip of her smallest finger down the dip above his mouth, defining the upper bow, then looks at him. 

“Perfect,” she says, dragging the tip of her tongue across her own lower lip. Bucky keeps his mouth open, just a little – does it need to set? – and Peggy turns his chin toward Steve. 

“Oh, _fuck,_ ” Steve says, with the kind of graceless reverence he should be directing toward his lord in heaven and no one else, Bucky’s fairly certain. Bucky closes his mouth, wets his lips, and Steve launches forward, crushes their mouths together hard enough that he can feel Steve’s teeth.

When Steve pulls back, panting a little, there’s a crimson smear across his mouth, and Bucky feels dizzy. “You’re gorgeous,” Steve says, breathlessly. He’s not even playing the game, the way he says it like it’s caught him off guard, and that’s good, too. Bucky touches the corner of Steve’s mouth, thinks it will be a goddamn good life if he can keep surprising Steve until the day he dies, no matter how soon that day comes. 

“You’re not so bad yourself, baby,” he says, kissing him again, off center enough that he leaves a smudge of red in the corner, and wriggles his hips. Steve groans as Bucky’s hip presses against his cock. “You gonna touch me, baby, make me fall apart for you?”

Steve smiles, a slow lazy curl, and draws his fingertips up Bucky’s thigh, over the slip. It catches a little with the drag, even though Steve’s hands are baby-smooth, callouses barely given a chance to develop with his healing these days. When he reaches the crease of Bucky’s hip, he pauses, says, “You gonna open up a little for me, baby? Let me touch you?” 

Bucky does, spreads his knees, pressing himself more firmly against Steve’s chest, grins at the sharp inhale Steve gives at the pressure on his cock. Between his own legs, the slip tents up, a glossy dark spot appearing over the head of his cock. 

“Look at you,” Steve says, looking down at Bucky’s lap. He runs one finger over the dark patch; Bucky’s cock twitches at the ghosting contact. “You’re so wet for us, baby. You want this so much.” 

Bucky nods, looking up to see Peggy pressing closer, tucked up against Steve’s side, and reaching for him. She touches the bodice of the slip again, cupping one hand like there’s a tit there to fill it out, and Bucky’s nipple swells to her touch. “So eager for us,” Peggy adds. “Don’t you worry, darling, we’ll take good care of you.” 

She rubs at his tits, scraping the silk over his nipples; Bucky finds himself leaning forward into her touch, watching the way the curve of her hand and the cut of the silk makes his chest look softer, girlish. He wonders if it feels this good for Peggy when he plays with her tits, little shocks of pleasure down to his cock, and hopes so because sucking at her tits nearly makes the whole goddamned war worth it.

He’s distracted away quickly enough, though, by Steve’s hand on his cock, wrapping lightly around the shaft with a clutch of silk in his palm. “Oh,” Bucky says, soft and shocked, at the way it drags and slides, at the way the spreading wet makes it cling to the head of his cock. 

Bucky leans his head back, eyes closed, every sensation spread across his skin wherever the silk touches, as Steve starts to jerk him with more purpose. “You’re soaking, doll,” Steve says, mouth nudging against Bucky’s jawline. “Sitting here so pretty, wanting it so much. You wanna tell me how much you want it?”

“Oh,” Bucky says again, “so much, baby, please, touch me, both of ya, please –” babbling a little already, thinking of what the most vocal of his previous gals might have said. “It’s so good, so –” He cuts off as Steve rolls his thumb over the head of his cock, spreading the silk before pulling it tight as he slides his hand down. Peggy’s hands move from Bucky’s chest to his knees, and he feels the shift of her weight as she leans forward and takes the tip of his cock in her mouth. 

Steve’s grip is just loose enough to snag the silk, pull it taut then soft as he jerks up and down, and Peggy’s mouth is warm, wet, mouthing softly at him, and all of it would usually be too gentle for his body, his now-fickle body that demands and withdrawals in equal measure, but now it’s so soft, so soft and sweet, and under the curve of Steve’s arm Bucky feels warm, and Peggy’s hands are strong, grounding, gripping him through his stockings, and he’s barely rocking his hips up, scant little jerks that come with his rapid breath, and soon enough it’s so much, so abundant, every sensation, that he’s crying out a little and coming, hot little spurts that soak the silk. 

Peggy mouths at him through his orgasm, even after Steve’s hand falls still, cupping around his shaft, like she’s spreading his slick all across the surface of the silk. It’ll never come out, he thinks wildly, and next time he’ll have a stain there, in his lap, and they’ll be able to tell him that they know he’s hungry for it, can see the evidence plainly there. He heaves a breath; Peggy pulls away, rubbing little circles on the inner bones of his knees with her thumbs.

Wrung out, slack, Bucky leans into Steve’s chest, head tucked under his chin. Curled in like this, soft and spent, he does feel small: precious in Steve’s arms. Steve pets at his back, his cheek, murmurs sweet little words to him that Bucky only half-catches. “You’re so good,” Steve says, and Bucky whimpers, and Peggy kisses his forehead, his closed eye, the cheekbone that isn’t pressed to Steve’s chest. 

“Do you want to lie down?” Steve says, all concern, and Bucky shakes his head, pulls away enough to see them both. Peggy’s hand cups his cheek; he turns his head, kisses her palm.

“Nah,” he says, “no, I want to make you happy, both of ya.”

“Oh, we’re happy,” Steve says, soft little smile pulling up the corners of his mouth.

Bucky lifts an eyebrow. “You know what I mean, punk.”

“Oh, do elaborate,” Peggy says.

Bucky looks at her; she’s still kneeling on the bed, weight off his thighs now, but under his gaze she spreads her knees a little, lets him glimpse the thick thatch of curls between her legs. “I wanna taste you,” he says. He wants her slick all over his face, wants to bury himself in her cunt and have her pet at his cheek and tell him he’s being so good.

Her eyelashes flutter up as she looks at him. “Okay,” she says, “and what else?” She’s barely ruffled, goddamn her; Bucky wants to make her tremble and bite her mouth and smear her lipstick.

“I figured Steve might want to fuck me,” he says, still looking at her, and she does bite her lower lip, just for a moment, eyes delighted. Against his arm, he feels Steve’s sharp inhale. 

“Both at once, perhaps?” Peggy says, and Bucky nods, eagerly. “Oh, you _are_ a good girl.” Bucky’s cock twitches, a little, at the pleased, breathless way she says it, at her hungry eyes on his mouth. 

Bucky shifts to stand up; Steve’s cock is still trapped between Bucky’s thigh and Steve’s belly, and at the movement, Steve lets out a shaken groan. He’s hard, so hard, wet at the head and glistening, and Bucky almost kneels on the spot and takes him in his mouth. 

“That sound good to you, Steve?” Bucky asks, and Steve lets out a broken laugh.

“Real damn fucking good,” he says. “How do you want it?” He’s had Steve up his ass before, just a couple of times, but he likes him between his thighs even more, they maybe both do. 

Swatting at Steve’s thigh, Bucky moves him off the bed, then gets up on it himself, kneeling. He plucks at the slip, lets it ripple and settle over his thighs. “No reason I should have all the fun with this pretty little thing,” he says. “You wanna feel it too? Soft and slick between my legs?”

Steve groans, covers his mouth with one hand. He nods in answer, so Bucky brings himself down on his elbows, spreads his legs a little. His stockings have fallen down his thighs, settling in the creases of his knees, but he doesn’t mind, figuring he’s going to mess up enough of Peggy’s present tonight. 

Like this, his face is just next to Peggy’s kneeling thigh; he plants a wet kiss on it, leaving a smudge of red. “You want to slick me up, Pegs?” he says, looking up at her, catching the way her eyes flare wide in surprise. 

“Sure thing, dollface,” she says, pitch-perfect imitation of Bucky himself, and then, on his pleased laugh, “I’ll make you so wet, baby.” He sucks in air; it should sound absurd, his American bluster on her composed lips, but instead it sends a tremor down his spine. 

She gets up, moves behind him, then he feels her hand, wet and warm, on his inner thigh. She rubs at him like that, one thigh then the other, pulls back then lets her soaking hand trail up over his hole, sending his hips jerking forward. 

“Fuck,” Steve mutters somewhere to his side. He cranes his head to look; Steve’s gaze is firmly on Peggy. “She’s wetting you up with her own slick,” he says, and Bucky groans. It’s velvety and slippery, not like the Vaseline they usually use, and she must be soaking, he thinks, then thinks how very much he wants his mouth in her cunt. 

Reaching between Bucky’s legs, Peggy draws the slip back, pulling it taut against his cock, which stirs weakly, and spreading it over his thighs, where it clings to all the wet she’s painted on him. She guides his knees together; he wishes he could see it, his thighs pressed tight with silk plastered all over them, a rosy-pink cunt for Steve’s pleasure. 

“All yours, darling,” Peggy says, shifting off the bed. It dips down lower as Steve climbs on, straddles Bucky’s calves. 

“ _God,_ ” Steve breathes out, hands on the curves of Bucky’s ass. “You look so pretty like this, baby.” He touches Bucky through the silk – only through the silk – presses his inner thighs hard with his thumbs, traces a finger up the sensitive skin below Bucky’s asshole, pets at the rim of his hole with one fingertip. Bucky’s breath comes in shaking, shuddering gasps, and Steve hasn’t even tucked himself up close yet, only strokes him with grazing touches. “You gonna be tight for me, baby? Gonna make it good for me?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Bucky says, a touch too breathless, and when Steve chuckles he can feel it all over. 

That Steve’s waiting for Peggy, though, becomes clear enough when she climbs onto the bed in front of Bucky, ambling up over his hands, and settles herself against the headboard, legs spread around his shoulders. She rubs one hand between her thighs, spreading herself open for him, and she’s soaking, her curls sticking wetly to her thighs, the inside of her lips red. Before he can lean forward, she brings her hand to his mouth, smearing her slick across his lips, his chin, sliding her fingers into his mouth.

She tastes goddamn good, heavy and sharp, and he chases her fingertips as she pulls them out, drawing him forward and opening her cunt up to his mouth. He follows, drops his mouth to her cunt and licks, coats his tongue, his lips, licks deep inside her. His nose nudges against her clit, gently, and he’ll get there, but first he wants to take her in, to taste and smell nothing but her slick.

Then Steve’s hand is on his thigh, holding him tight while he slots in behind him, nudging his cock between Bucky’s legs. Drawing his knees close together, Bucky grips him, pleased when he feels Steve shove forward, grace and gentleness forgotten. Bucky rolls his hips minutely, in time with Steve’s thrusts. Each push rubs the silk against Bucky’s thighs, his hole; Steve’s cock shoves against Bucky’s balls, and every time he pulls back the silk tugs taut against Bucky’s cock, which starts to show some lazy interest again.

He feels drawn out, loose, the way they both hold him, demanding and loving in equal measures. Peggy pets at his hair, not pulling, just stroking, fingertips tangling in his sticky Brylcreem. “You’re so good,” she says, and his hips jerk. “Lick my clit for me, darling, that’s a good girl,” she says, and Bucky trails his tongue upwards, flicks it over her clit and feels the way her thighs tighten. “Darling,” she says again, and she hasn’t called him _James_ once, just _darling_ and _baby_ and _good girl_ in that way that makes him feel beloved. “Just there –”

He licks, and he tightens his thighs and shoves back against Steve, which sends Steve over first, jerking erratically against his thighs until there’s a warm wet spread between Bucky’s legs, all across the stained silk and sticking, sodden, to his cock, his thighs. Steve doesn’t quite pull out, just drapes over Bucky’s body a little and pets down his side. 

Bucky lets the shivering tremors that Steve’s hand stroking silk against his ribcage gives him suffuse through his body, then drags his mind back to his mouth. Peggy’s clit is hard and swollen under his tongue, and he knows the broad, wide strokes she likes, and he licks her and thinks about his lipstick smearing on his chin, on the inside of her open, unfurled lips. The fingers she has settled on his hair spasm, a quick grip and release, as she shoves her hips forward against his mouth, letting out panting little groans. 

He follows her cunt as she falls back, giving it gentle little swipes as she clenches and trembles and, finally, shoves him away. When he looks up, she still has one tit gripped hard, nipple viced between her knuckles, and is flushed from her belly to her cheeks. She blinks down at him, pleased and lazy, and swipes at his mouth with her thumb, which comes away slick and red, and licks herself off of it. 

“You’re good,” she says, “you’re so good, darling, our good girl.” He lets his eyes drop, suddenly heavy, and leans his head against her leg. “Our good boy,” she says, more softly; he rubs his cheek against the soft, yielding inside of her thigh. 

Steve draws back, pulling stickily away from Bucky, who groans a little, and lowers himself to the bed, on his side tucked against the wall. He tugs at Bucky, toppling him over easily, and pulls him in to spoon together. Bucky grumbles a little, but goes, letting the softness of his sated muscles give in to Steve’s strength. 

The slip sticks to his thighs, wet and cooling, but Bucky doesn’t want to take it off. The stockings wrinkle down his calves, and he thinks about getting up to roll them down, put them away before they snag, but then Steve throws one arm over his waist and pulls him close. 

Peggy gives a soft laugh and rolls up on her knees, leaning down to guide the stockings off Bucky’s feet. “Am I correct in assuming you’ll want to hold onto these?” she says, teasing in her voice, but Steve says, “ _Yes_ ,” emphatically before Bucky can even nod. 

She sets them on the bedside table and lies down on the last sliver of space, facing Bucky. He wriggles one arm out to curl around her ribs, and she tucks her head under his chin. Steve’s arm, over Bucky’s torso, reaches far enough to touch Peggy’s waist, too, like he’s enveloping them both, keeping them sheltered. 

With her toes, Peggy hooks the quilt at the end of the bed and pulls it up, covering them all against the chill of rationed heat. Bucky hadn’t noticed it at all, not until now, but the quilt settles heavy and welcome over his shoulder, Peggy’s warm breath on his chest a comfort.

“Thank you, Bucky,” Steve whispers, mouth on the nape of Bucky’s neck. Reverential, Bucky thinks again, and wonders what it means that he doesn’t mind drawing Steve away from his god. 

“Thank Peggy,” Bucky says, sleepily. “She’s the goddamn genius here, you punk.” Peggy wriggles against him, kisses his chest just above the lace. 

“That’s right,” she says. “Now, sleep; we have a briefing in the morning.” Bucky snorts at the mock-stern tone but is happy to settle in. 

Just as he drifts off, mind hazy and nebulous and body warm, the all clear siren sounds. His half-slumbered mind thinks about buying brand-new silk, lush colors and weighty falls of fabric across his whole body, once the war is over. New clothes in general, and a bed big enough for him and Steve and Peggy, and no nosy neighbors to wonder about it. He can be a little soft, he thinks, once the war is over.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Sappho's "Fragment 22," as translated by Anne Carson:
> 
> "...  
> I bid you sing  
> of Gongyla, Abanthis, taking up  
> your lyre as (now again) longing  
> floats around you,
> 
> your beauty. For her dress when you saw it  
> stirred you. And I rejoice.  
> In fact she herself once blamed me  
> Kyprogeneia
> 
> because I prayed  
> this word:  
> I want  
> ..."
> 
> Come visit me on [tumblr](lbmisscharlie.tumblr.com) if you'd like.


End file.
